PHOTO: Police at the scene of the attack in Nice in southern France
At least 84 people were killed in Nice in southern France late Thursday night when a large truck deliberately ran into crowds celebrating Bastille Day.
A “police source” has said that a 31-year-old Franco-Tunisian man, born in Tunisia, has been detained. He was not on the watch list of French intelligence services but was known to police in connection with common law crimes such as theft and violence, the source said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Authorities said the man fired on the crowd and police as he drove, zig-zagging into the crowd to hit as many people as possible. He reportedly ploughed through people for about 2 km (1.25 miles) at a speed of about 50 km (31 miles) per hour before he came to a halt.
Officials said the truck was loaded with weapons and grenades. Unconfirmed reports said the rifles were fake and the grenade was “inactive”.
The crowd were watching a fireworks display when the truck approached. Witnesses said parents frantically threw their children over fences to save them from the oncoming truck, as a “stampede” of people rushed down the Promenade des Anglais.
One witness, Wassim Bouhel, said:
It was like hallucinating….[The lorry] zigzagged — you had no idea where it was going. My wife…a meter away…she was dead. The lorry ripped through everything…poles, trees. We have never seen anything like it. Some people were hanging on the door and tried to stop it.
French President François Hollande called the attack a “monstrosity” which was “terrorist in nature” and said soldiers would be deployed to support gendarmes and police, particularly at the country’s borders.
Hollande said a state of emergency, which was due to expire on 26 July, will be extended for three months.
The President will chair an emergency security and defense meeting at 9 a.m. and then go to Nice.
